Pablo Larraín is honored with the Carlos Saura City of Huesca Award. Born in Santiago de Chile, he made his debut as a director with Fuga in 2006, a co-production between Chile and Argentina that was awarded as the Best Latin American Film at the Málaga Festival, as well as recognitions  in Trieste, Cartagena, and Montreal. Three years later, he premiered his second work, Tony Manero, at the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, a film that earned him international recognition within the industry, with awards in Rotterdam, Warsaw, Turin, Havana, and Istanbul. His subsequent films would take him to the world’s major festivals: Post Mortem (2010) competed in the Official Selection at the Venice Film Festival, No (2012) marked his return to the French Croisette and received a nomination for the Academy Awards, while El Club (2015) won the Grand Jury Prize at the Berlin Film Festival, as well as nominations for the Golden Globes, four Fénix Awards (including Best Picture), and the Platinum Award for Best Screenplay. In 2016, Neruda, a film about the iconic Chilean poet and politician, brought him back to the red carpet of the French Riviera and the Golden Globes, and also won the Fénix Award for Best Picture, Best Editing, and Best Costume Design.

With a prolific career in Iberoamerica, he made the leap to Hollywood and has been combining both industries ever since. He conquered the North American film industry with Jackie (2016) and the Oscar-winning actress, Natalie Portman in the role of the widow of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. The film won the award for Best Screenplay at Venice, three Oscar nominations, and one for the Golden Globes. After this success, he would release Ema, also selected for the Italian festival. His most recent work is Spencer, about Diana of Wales, with which he would once again be in contention for the Golden Lion, and where his protagonist (Kristen Stewart) would be recognized with multiple awards, including those from various critics associations in the United States, including Denver, Seattle, Dallas, and Chicago.

His love for the art of cinema goes far beyond his work. Along with his brother Juan de Dios, he founded the production company Fabula, with which he has developed his own projects and those of other filmmakers. Under this label, he has supported talents such as fellow Chilean Sebastián Lelio, with whom he worked on, among others, A Fantastic Woman, winner of the Oscar for Best International Feature Film.

Currently, he is working on several projects, including María, a production about Maria Callas in which Angelina Jolie has been confirmed to play the Greek-American soprano, one of the most admired voices in the history of opera and an icon in the collective imagination.

CARLOS SAURA CITY OF HUESCA AWARD

With the City of Huesca Award, Huesca International Film Festival recognizes the bright professional career of young figures of the world cinema which, in addition, have a promising professional future. It has been awarded since 1991, and in 2018 the Huesca Film Festival Foundation, along with the Festival’s management team and the filmmaker Carlos Saura, decide to change the nomenclature of the prize to denominate Carlos Saura City of Huesca, with the approval of the director. Carlos Saura, born in Huesca, has one of the most awarded international filmographies, one of the names with capital letters in the history of the seventh art and thus intends to pay a sincere tribute to the city festival that saw him born.

The Carlos Saura City of Huesca Award has honoured the career of figures such as Carlos Saura (1991), José María Forqué (1992), Fernando Trueba (1993), Imanol Uribe (1994), Arturo Ripstein (1995), Gerardo Herrero (1996), Francisco J. Lombardi (1997), Manuel Gutierrez Aragón (1998), Bigas Luna (1999), Ventura Pons (2000), Juanjo Puigcorbé (2001), Vicente Aranda (2002), Zelimir Kilnik (2003), Mercedes Sampietro (2004), Julio Medem (2005), Gracia Querejeta (2006), Marc Recha (2007), José María Escriche (2008), Basilio Martín Patino (2009), Montxo Armendáriz (2010), José Luis Guerin (2011), Icíar Bollaín (2012), Adriana Ugarte (2014), Silvia Abascal (2015), Paula Ortiz (2016), Leticia Dolera (2017), Aura Garrido (2018), Rodrigo Sorogoyen & Isabel Peña (2019), Anna Castillo (2020), Michel Franco (2021) and Diego Luna (2022).